Right now, we are waiting to see if MM is using honey in its dough. I tend to doubt it because MM seems to be sensitive to vegans, who by and large view honey as being non-vegan, as Don (buceriasdon) has pointed out. I'm not sure that MM has been presented with this question before so I will be interested in what Norma learns if she decides to call MM on the matter. I would also be surprised if MM is using brown sugar since it appears that most brown sugar is just molasses added to refined white sugars. I believe that raw cane sugar, which is often called turbinado or dehydrated cane sugar syrup (among other names), might pass muster because it is by and large a more natural product and does not qualify as a "refined white sugar" (for one thing, it is brown). But the added sweetener, if any, could be just about anything that is not a refined white sugar. Norma might get lucky and be told whether MM uses anything other than molasses as a sweetener in its dough. This is what I was told before by Melody at MM but I am not comfortable with that answer based on what Norma and the rest of us have concluded from our work on this thread.

Cool. I hope my post didn't offend anyone or look like I was questioning Biz's endurance and dedication or the awesomeness of his latest. This thread has been amazing.

No harm done whatsoever! And I appreciate all the encouragement from everyone here - I know it's been said before, but this is a great community and it's such a pleasure to be a part of it.

I don't think I'm worthy of any praise for anything I've done. . I'm just having fun and trying to learn as well. The great folks here and their interest in learning too motivates me to want to help out in any way possible.

What has intrigued me most about your last experiment is the use of the diastatic barley malt, especially at 2%. As Tom Lehmann's posts and the articles I referenced indicate, diastatic malt is not a particularly good choice for getting more color, taste or sweetness and at high levels can result in a slack and wet dough because of the action of diastatic malt on the damaged starch to release water into the dough, especially since damaged starch absorbs about three times as much water as undamaged starch. However, with a dough hydration of 53%, maybe the added water is not harmful to the dough as it might be with a much higher hydration and may even have played a positive role in the outcome of the last MM clone pizza you made, especially in the texture of the crust and crumb. It is also possible that there was better and faster fermentation of the dough that might have favorably affected the outcome. These considerations are why I suggested some experiments to confirm your results.

No problem, Peter. That does make sense. Of course I was just flying blind, using only the Italian Bread formula as a starting point for the diastatic malt amount.

I would not necessarily say the crust was overly sweet. It just had a very pleasing and complex flavor, with at least some apparent increase in sweetness. Though I did increase the molasses by half a percent, I don't know if that alone would account for the improvement.

The experiment using Peter’s MM#5 formulation with the Brer Rabbit Mild Flavored Molasses and Wildflower Honey went well today. The dough ball sat out for 4 ½ hrs to warm-up. The dough ball looked about the same color as MM dough balls, and opened well. The dough could be tossed and twirled. The pie baked well, and did have good oven spring and also a moist crumb rim. The color of the crumb also looked good to me.

Steve, my taste testers, and I thought this attempt at a MM clone was really good.

I received a return email from John Johansen today. This is what I wrote to John, and what he replied to me.

Hi John,

I had a question I wanted to ask you, and also some pictures of the one attempt I did with using your product #732 molasses. I did do one experiment were I didn't add any "unrefined sugars" to the dough and only another molasses product, and that experiment didn't get enough sweetness in the crust, but the pizza did turn out well. This week I tried your molasses product in combination with 2% light brown sugar in the formula in combination with 10% molasses and that made the pizza crust the right color, oven spring, and also the right amount of sweetness in the crust. If it was you that understands a lot more than I do about your products, would you use barley malt syrup to maybe also make the crust sweet, instead of light brown sugar. I am looking for a certain flavor profile and am trying to stay away from something that might be called "sugars" in the dough. I know molasses does contain sugars, but am wondering since barley malt syrup is used in brewing beer, if that might somehow work out if combined with molasses to give a certain sweetness in the crust of a pizza. Maybe you can't answer this question, but I just wanted your opinions.

Thanks!

Norma

Hi Norma,Thank you for the e-mail.I think you may have a good Idea with ½ Molasses and ½ Malt.I like to send you a new Dry malt that might work better.

Best regards,John Johansen

I don’t know if John sends me a Dry malt product sample to try if that will help this thread or not. Does anyone want me to ask John more questions about the Dry malt product or another Malt product?

Ask John where the nearest MM is, and what his opinion is about the crust/texture/flavor/sweetness in relation to the product he represents.

Gene,

I never asked John if he ever tasted a MM pizza. I didn’t even tell him I was trying to make pies like MM. I can ask him in another email if he ever tasted a MM pie, and if he did, what he thought about the crust/texture/flavor/sweetness in relation to the product he represents.

The experiment using Peter’s MM#5 formulation with the Brer Rabbit Mild Flavored Molasses and Wildflower Honey went well today. The dough ball sat out for 4 ½ hrs to warm-up. The dough ball looked about the same color as MM dough balls, and opened well. The dough could be tossed and twirled. The pie baked well, and did have good oven spring and also a moist crumb rim. The color of the crumb also looked good to me.

Steve, my taste testers, and I thought this attempt at a MM clone was really good.

Norma,

Your latest MM clone pizza looks very good. But can you tell us how close a replica it was to a real MM pizza? And how did the latest pizza compare with other MM clone pizzas you have made?

I don’t know if John sends me a Dry malt product sample to try if that will help this thread or not. Does anyone want me to ask John more questions about the Dry malt product or another Malt product?

Norma,

As between sucrose (table sugar), honey, molasses, brown sugar, and malt extract, the malt extract is the least sweet (if sucrose is 100 on a scale, malt extract is about 65). So, increasing the amount of malt extract and reducing the amount of molasses to get a 50/50 mix should mean less sweetness, not more. I'd be surprised that the new malt product that John at Malt Products wants to send to you changes that outcome.

I believe the closest MM unit to John if he is in New Jersey is the new MM unit that you went to in DC.

Your latest MM clone pizza looks very good. But can you tell us how close a replica it was to a real MM pizza? And how did the latest pizza compare with other MM clone pizzas you have made?

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for saying the latest MM clone looks good! In my opinion and Steve opinion it was close to a real MM pizza, but not exactly what I remember. There was a little more sweetness in my attempt than the real MM pizzas I ate. Also the crumb of MM pizzas were a little denser in the rim than my attempt. The taste of the attempt yesterday was very similar to the attempt I made with Grandma’s Original molasses and brown sugar using the formula at Reply 505 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.msg158009.html#msg158009The honey in my attempt with Brer Rabbit molasses yesterday seemed to give the crust a more complex taste, but really not a lot of difference. I think both of the formulas could give someone that wanted to try an MM attempt a decent MM clone pizza, but not exactly the same.

Do you advise any other changes to the formula for another attempt? All these clone MM doughs fascinate me in that the dough doesn’t seem to ferment much when left at room temperature for awhile. I wonder what causes that.

As between sucrose (table sugar), honey, molasses, brown sugar, and malt extract, the malt extract is the least sweet (if sucrose is 100 on a scale, malt extract is about 65). So, increasing the amount of malt extract and reducing the amount of molasses to get a 50/50 mix should mean less sweetness, not more. I'd be surprised that the new malt product that John at Malt Products wants to send to you changes that outcome.

I believe the closest MM unit to John if he is in New Jersey is the new MM unit that you went to in DC.

Peter

I will email John at Malt products and ask him how he proposes to get the same amount of sweetness using the malt extract. Thanks for telling me that the malt product that John wants to send me would probably be less sweet with molasses. I also will ask John if he has ever been to an MM location and tasted their pizzas.

Do you advise any other changes to the formula for another attempt? All these clone MM doughs fascinate me in that the dough doesn’t seem to ferment much when left at room temperature for awhile. I wonder what causes that.

Norma,

Let me think about possible changes.

I think that there are several possible reasons why you have not seen a lot of fermentation when the dough balls are left at room temperature prior to using.

First, a frozen dough ball does not get much fermentation to begin with. You will get a little while the dough ball rests at room temperature for a brief period before placing into the freezer, and it will continue to ferment a bit longer until it freezes. Once frozen, there is zero fermentation. The real part of the fermentation occurs during defrosting and tempering before using the dough ball. But a good part of the time that the dough ball is in the refrigerator is spent defrosting. It might not be until the second day in the refrigerator that the dough ball experiences more fermentation. That fermentation will continue once the dough ball is removed from the refrigerator and allowed to temper at room temperature. Of course, a tempered dough will ferment faster in a warm room temperature environment than a cooler one, and it will ferment more if a long temper time is used as opposed to a shorter one.

Second, molasses includes a mixture of simple sugars, and those sugars are fermented at different rates by the yeast. As noted previously, one of those simple sugars is fructose, and there is a fair amount of it (the sucrose is inverted by the enzyme invertase to fructose and glucose). Yeast prefers other simple sugars over fructose, so there may be reduced fermentation activity as a result, especially given that the window of "active" fermentation is fairly short to begin with--maybe not long enough for the yeast to ferment a good part of the fructose. If honey is also used, there is even more fructose in the dough (honey is 38% fructose).

Third, a hydration of around 53-54% is low, even when effectively increased by a couple percent or so because of the water content of the liquid sweeteners and any added oil. All things being equal, a low hydration dough will ferment more slowly than a higher hydration dough. You would perhaps need a lot more yeast to see real signs of fermentation, as manifested by a significant rise in the dough.

Fourth, freezing damages part of the yeast. The extent of the damage may vary from one case to another, including the temperature of the freezer, how fast the dough is frozen, whether the freezer has a defrost cycle, and the duration that the dough is held in the freezer.

There may be other factors that affect the rate and degree of fermentation but I believe the above reasons are the main ones.

I think that there are several possible reasons why you have not seen a lot of fermentation when the dough balls are left at room temperature prior to using.

First, a frozen dough ball does not get much fermentation to begin with. You will get a little while the dough ball rests at room temperature for a brief period before placing into the freezer, and it will continue to ferment a bit longer until it freezes. Once frozen, there is zero fermentation. The real part of the fermentation occurs during defrosting and tempering before using the dough ball. But a good part of the time that the dough ball is in the refrigerator is spent defrosting. It might not be until the second day in the refrigerator that the dough ball experiences more fermentation. That fermentation will continue once the dough ball is removed from the refrigerator and allowed to temper at room temperature. Of course, a tempered dough will ferment faster in a warm room temperature environment than a cooler one, and it will ferment more if a long temper time is used as opposed to a shorter one.

Second, molasses includes a mixture of simple sugars, and those sugars are fermented at different rates by the yeast. As noted previously, one of those simple sugars is fructose, and there is a fair amount of it (the sucrose is inverted by the enzyme invertase to fructose and glucose). Yeast prefers other simple sugars over fructose, so there may be reduced fermentation activity as a result, especially given that the window of "active" fermentation is fairly short to begin with--maybe not long enough for the yeast to ferment a good part of the fructose. If honey is also used, there is even more fructose in the dough (honey is 38% fructose).

Third, a hydration of around 53-54% is low, even when effectively increased by a couple percent or so because of the water content of the liquid sweeteners and any added oil. All things being equal, a low hydration dough will ferment more slowly than a higher hydration dough. You would perhaps need a lot more yeast to see real signs of fermentation, as manifested by a significant rise in the dough.

Fourth, freezing damages part of the yeast. The extent of the damage may vary from one case to another, including the temperature of the freezer, how fast the dough is frozen, whether the freezer has a defrost cycle, and the duration that the dough is held in the freezer.

There may be other factors that affect the rate and degree of fermentation but I believe the above reasons are the main ones.

Peter

Peter,

I never really did a side-by-side comparison with different formulas and freezing dough balls. I have done some freezing of dough balls, but not enough to really understand about what happens.

I knew that the MM frozen dough balls didn’t have a lot of time to start the fermentation process, and also knew that dough balls that are frozen have zero fermentation. It is interesting that you think the dough balls might not have much real fermentation until the second day in the defrosting process.

I didn’t think about the molasses including the mixture of simple sugars, and those sugars being fermented at different rates by the yeast. It is complicated how different sugars are used by the yeast. I can understand if honey is used, there is even more fructose in the dough. I also forgot about the low hydration doughs fermenting slower than higher hydration doughs. I did know that freezing damages part of the yeast. Thanks for explaining everything to me.

If I do another experimental MM dough next week, I might use the “poppy seed” trick to really see how much or fast a MM dough ball ferments. I haven’t used the “poppy seed” trick for a long time.

I did call Melody this morning, but she wasn't in. I left a message on her voice mail.

Thanks Pete.I have also been very surprised that I don't get more rise at room temp and I need to have it sit out 3-4 hrs vs. the normal 1-2 to see any movement in rise. Ps: I don't freeze - i do a fridge ferment and pull 'em out anywhere from 2-6 days based on schedule. Shocking with all the sugar but as you point out it's a different kind of sugar. It's been a really fun dough. I plan to make a few over thanksgiving break and will do half with the brown sugar and robust molasses and the other half with honey and molasses and try to document.

Tonight, I made what turned out to be my closest copy to date of the 10” MM pizza (pepperoni) that I had this past August in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. The combination of sweeteners I used for this pizza was 7% Grandma’s Original molasses and 6% cheap, generic, store-brand clover honey. The form factor of the pizza was almost perfect, with a large bulbous rim surrounding a sunken interior, just as I had experienced with the MM pizza that I had in Florida. That is something I have struggled to produce with my prior MM clone dough balls for some time, although I suspect that with practice I have gotten somewhat better at achieving this result. The sweetness of the crust, which has been a topic of much discussion and experimentation in this thread, was pretty much as I remembered it, and the color and texture of the rim and crumb were also as I remembered them. There were even some fermentation blisters but not quite as pronounced as the crust of the MM pizza that I had in Florida. Also, the rim of my pizza was uniform in height. The rim of the MM pizza that I had in Florida had high and low spots.

The dough itself handled beautifully, better than any of the other MM clone doughs I have made to date. I think that the superior handling qualities helped achieve the sunken interior with the pronounced, bulbous rim that I have been striving to produce over the last few months. I had no trouble opening up the dough ball and stretching and tossing and spinning the skin. The steps I took to achieve these results were as follows. After making the dough (using my Cuisinart 14-cup food processor), I let it rest for about 15 minutes (to get some fermentation activity going) and then put it into the freezer compartment of my refrigerator. The dough was frozen for about six days. I decided to let the frozen dough defrost in the refrigerator for two days before using. The temper time (after I took the frozen dough ball out of the refrigerator) was about two hours, at a room temperature of around 76 degrees F. The dough at this point looked and felt like those I had seen in the various MM videos.

The pizza itself was baked on a pizza stone (Cordierite) that I had placed on the lowest oven rack position of my electric oven and preheated for about an hour at around 525 degrees F. It took six minutes to bake the pizza. I did not have to lift the pizza off of the stone to a higher oven rack position to achieve better top crust coloration. There was plenty of sugars in the dough to achieve good crust coloration, both top and bottom. There was exceptional oven spring, which helped create the bulbous rim.

*The KABF/VWG Blend comprises 197.74 gram (6.98 ounces) King Arthur bread flour and 5.66 grams (0.20 ounces) Hodgson Mill vital wheat glutenNote: The amount of dough is for a single 10” pizza, based on a nominal thickness factor of 0.15279; the “adjusted” hydration (to compensate for the water content of the molasses and the honey) = 55.6%; the “effective” hydration (that compensates for the oil) = 57.6%; the bowl residue compensation = 2%

It should be noted from the above that the thickness factor that corresponds to the amount of dough (12 ounces) for a single 10” pizza is 0.15279. That is a larger value than used to make a 14” pizza (0.118684) that Norma and others have been making under this thread. As previously discussed, MM does not use the same thickness factor for all of its pizza sizes. Also, as noted above, I have been using King Arthur bread flour and an amount of Hodgson Mill vital wheat gluten to achieve a total protein content of 14.2%. I used the Mixed Mass Conversion Calculator at http://foodsim.toastguard.com/ to calculate the amount of vital wheat gluten needed to achieve the 14.2% total protein content of the KABF/VWG blend. Those with high-gluten flour are likely to achieve even better results, although it might be necessary to adjust the formula hydration slightly when using high-gluten flour.

I will be interested in what Norma learns from Melody at MM on the honey issue. My present view is that MM may well be using a second sweetener to supplement the molasses in its dough, particularly since Norma and the rest of us have tried just about every type and form of molasses, in several different amounts, without getting the distinct sweetness in the crusts of our pizzas while keeping the color of the dough and finished crust in the proper range. MM would have to be using a super-duper, super-sweet molasses to avoid having to supplement it with another sweetener. If MM is not using honey, my choice as an alternative to honey would be raw cane sugar (turbinado), which is not a “refined white sugar” from what I have been able to determine. I would start with 4% raw cane sugar and about 8-9% Grandma’s Original molasses.

Tonight, I made what turned out to be my closest copy to date of the 10” MM pizza (pepperoni) that I had this past August in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. The combination of sweeteners I used for this pizza was 7% Grandma’s Original molasses and 6% cheap, generic, store-brand clover honey. The form factor of the pizza was almost perfect, with a large bulbous rim surrounding a sunken interior, just as I had experienced with the MM pizza that I had in Florida. That is something I have struggled to produce with my prior MM clone dough balls for some time, although I suspect that with practice I have gotten somewhat better at achieving this result. The sweetness of the crust, which has been a topic of much discussion and experimentation in this thread, was pretty much as I remembered it, and the color and texture of the rim and crumb were also as I remembered them. There were even some fermentation blisters but not quite as pronounced as the crust of the MM pizza that I had in Florida. Also, the rim of my pizza was uniform in height. The rim of the MM pizza that I had in Florida had high and low spots.

The dough itself handled beautifully, better than any of the other MM clone doughs I have made to date. I think that the superior handling qualities helped achieve the sunken interior with the pronounced, bulbous rim that I have been striving to produce over the last few months. I had no trouble opening up the dough ball and stretching and tossing and spinning the skin. The steps I took to achieve these results were as follows. After making the dough (using my Cuisinart 14-cup food processor), I let it rest for about 15 minutes (to get some fermentation activity going) and then put it into the freezer compartment of my refrigerator. The dough was frozen for about six days. I decided to let the frozen dough defrost in the refrigerator for two days before using. The temper time (after I took the frozen dough ball out of the refrigerator) was about two hours, at a room temperature of around 76 degrees F. The dough at this point looked and felt like those I had seen in the various MM videos.

The pizza itself was baked on a pizza stone (Cordierite) that I had placed on the lowest oven rack position of my electric oven and preheated for about an hour at around 525 degrees F. It took six minutes to bake the pizza. I did not have to lift the pizza off of the stone to a higher oven rack position to achieve better top crust coloration. There was plenty of sugars in the dough to achieve good crust coloration, both top and bottom. There was exceptional oven spring, which helped create the bulbous rim.

*The KABF/VWG Blend comprises 197.74 gram (6.98 ounces) King Arthur bread flour and 5.66 grams (0.20 ounces) Hodgson Mill vital wheat glutenNote: The amount of dough is for a single 10” pizza, based on a nominal thickness factor of 0.15279; the “adjusted” hydration (to compensate for the water content of the molasses and the honey) = 55.6%; the “effective” hydration (that compensates for the oil) = 57.6%; the bowl residue compensation = 2%

It should be noted from the above that the thickness factor that corresponds to the amount of dough (12 ounces) for a single 10” pizza is 0.15279. That is a larger value than used to make a 14” pizza (0.118684) that Norma and others have been making under this thread. As previously discussed, MM does not use the same thickness factor for all of its pizza sizes. Also, as noted above, I have been using King Arthur bread flour and an amount of Hodgson Mill vital wheat gluten to achieve a total protein content of 14.2%. I used the Mixed Mass Conversion Calculator at http://foodsim.toastguard.com/ to calculate the amount of vital wheat gluten needed to achieve the 14.2% total protein content of the KABF/VWG blend. Those with high-gluten flour are likely to achieve even better results, although it might be necessary to adjust the formula hydration slightly when using high-gluten flour.

Peter

Peter,

I am glad you achieved your closest copy of the MM pizza that you ate in Florida today! Good to also hear your form factor of the pizza was almost perfect. Nice also your sweetness was as you remembered it.